AFTER the devastating Florence flood of 1966 and, following his inability to bring to justice a group of ex-fascists guilty of a terrible crime, Inspector Bordelli has retired from the police and moved to an old house in the country.

There, in Death in the Tuscan Hills by Marco Vichi (Hodder, £18.99), he’s learning how to cook and to garden, reading long-postponed books and walking in the hills. But that last, unresolved, case haunts him.

Then, during one of his walks, he stumbles on a chance at retribution if not quite justice and he wonders if this is fate — or is he fooling himself?

This altogether unusual book mixes a drama of psychology and morality with a suspenseful plot and a flavourful evocation of rural life.

In Real Tigers by Mick Herron (John Murray, £7.99), Slough House is where MI5 sends the agents it wants to get rid of without having to sack them.

The drunks, the coke addicts, the gamblers and the obnoxious idiots all end up in this bureaucratic purgatory, where work is found for idle hands but only of the most tedious, souldestroying kind.

So, when someone kidnaps a Slough House operative, there is general astonishment. Why on earth would anybody want to snatch one of the “slow horses?” Whatever the reason, the victim’s reluctant, fractious colleagues are going to have to work together as if they were a real team if they’re to get her back.

I haven’t read a funnier, or wittier, crime novel for a while nor such an enjoyable or original espionage story.

The protagonist of The Chemist by Stephanie Meyer (Sphere, £20) also used to work for the intelligence services, in the US in her case.

A brilliant young scientist, she was employed as a master of interrogation — or torture, if you want to use the impolite word.

Sadly, her secret employers’ method of getting rid of unwanted staff tends towards the terminal, so she’s been on the run for years. W

hen her former boss offers her one last job as part of a peace deal, she realises it’s probably a trap but sees no alternative but to agree.

Before she knows it, a woman who has always prided herself on having no emotional burdens is trying to keep two other people alive as well as herself — and that’s not counting the dogs.

This chase-andrevenge thriller features some nice twists, plenty of excitement and all the gadgets and spycraft any Bond fan could wish for.

The Dry by Jane Harper (Little Brown, £12.99) is set in a dying Australian farming town.

It sees Falk, now a Melbourne cop, return to the place he grew up in but hoped never to visit again for the funeral of a childhood friend.

He’s far from welcome, especially when he begins to wonder whether his old pal really did kill himself and his family in desperation at the ruinous drought.

Atmospheric and riveting, this remarkable debut announces a significant new talent.